


The Demon-Hunter’s Handbook for Home and Self Care

by maidenstar



Series: EFA fic challenges [2]
Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, EFA Fic Challenge 2019, F/F, Fluff, Humour, Maidenstar VS word limits, Prompt: toothpaste, Romantic Fluff, canon adjacent, demon goo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-10
Updated: 2019-02-10
Packaged: 2019-10-25 17:48:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17729882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maidenstar/pseuds/maidenstar
Summary: ‘“You know what? You shot the demon, so I’m leaving this one to the experts. I’m just gonna go ahead and put the garlic bread in the oven,” Nicole says, before drifting off towards the kitchen. Under her breath she can be heard to mutter,‘one night. Just one night off without any demon fluids, please’.'Life is hard and downtime is rare when you’re part of the local demon-hunting team. But self-care is important, although relatively hard to achieve. Sometimes, it’s all about squeezing the happy moments into the gaps between the chaos.[Or, the one where Waverly comes home covered in demon goo. Nicole just wants a normal date night for once.]





	The Demon-Hunter’s Handbook for Home and Self Care

**Author's Note:**

> Uhhhh you guys??? It's only time for one of my favourite things ever!! EFA fic challenge time! 
> 
> Honestly, I love that the awesome folks over at EFA (https://twitter.com/EFA_Podcast) arrange these fanfic challenges. Much as I remain horrible at writing to prompts and word counts (check that number, go on), I enjoy it a whole lot and am so grateful to the EFA team for organising not just the challenges but all the content they put out. Thank you guys for being awesome!
> 
> Sidenote to this year's challenge: I basically went from having 0 ideas, to having multiple and ended up writing two fics (and drafting a third) for the prompt 'toothpaste'. Thank you to Anja, Liz, and Jacqui for checking out the two options and voting on this as the one to enter. I will be putting up option two at some point, and incorporating it into the 'Gingerbread' series I started a while back and have been wanting to expand upon for ages. 
> 
> Of the two entries, this is easily the less hurt-comfort ish of them. I sort of imagine it could take place somewhere during or just after a S3 where the Waverly-in-the-garden situation isn't a thing. Either way, I had a lot of fun writing this cheesy little fluff piece and I hope you all enjoy reading it.

Even accounting for the thrum of the water hitting the bottom of the shower, Waverly hears the conversation in the hallway right as it occurs.

The walls in the homestead are just that thin. The experience of one too many red-faced conversations with Wynonna was already evidence enough of that.

“What the hell happened in here?” Nicole cries, and Waverly hears her shut the front door with a small clatter.

“Demon literally exploded,” comes Wynonna’s answer, as if it were an entirely normal thing to say. “Demon guts everywhere.”

 _Although, in fairness_ , Waverly decides as she wrestles a particularly large clump of the offending substance out of her hair, _this pretty much_ is _normal by now_.

Indeed, Nicole’s follow-up question is rather telling.

“What? In _here_?”

“No, out in the forest. Fun fact: demon goo - really hard to get off hair and fabrics.”

In the bathroom, Waverly feels a wodge of the stuff dislodge and fall into the shower stall with a horrible, wet-sounding _thunk_. She watches in resignation as the colourless, oily-looking lump wobbles and bobs about in the water before eventually getting stuck at the drain.

With a sigh, she nudges at it with a bare toe until it breaks apart and the smaller chunks slip between the metal grille.

“Really?” she hears Nicole say, sounding doubtful. “Because you kind of seem fine.”

“Oh, I am. I didn’t say I was the one who got hit by it.”

“Jeremy?” Nicole asks, but her tone suggests she already knows that the answer is Waverly. At any rate, she must be able to hear the water running and make the assumption that Waverly is taking a shower.

“Literally used her as a human shield,” Wynonna says, her voice growing distant and Waverly assumes that her sister is walking to the living room. Before she fades out entirely, Waverly hears her say, “claims it was an accident but...”

A moment later, and the bathroom door opens a crack and Nicole’s voice filters into the room.

“Babe?”

“Yeah, you’re fine.”

The door creaks as it swings further inwards and Nicole steps over the battered old threshold strip. The homestead’s bathroom has never locked properly so nobody ever really bothers anymore. It is impossible not to hear someone using the water.

“But are _you_?” Nicole asks in reference to Waverly’s answer.

“Oh I’m good,” Waverly chirps. “Gooey, but good.”

She wipes at the misted glass of the shower, clearing enough of a space that she can see Nicole’s doubtful look as the other woman passes by.

“Shouldn’t you like, be in a decontamination shower?” Nicole asks, moving to the sink.

Waverly makes a high-pitched, non-committal sort of noise. Black Badge are long gone, along with their provision of such fancy trappings as a decontamination shower. She would have to make do with old fashioned soap and water. A bit of demon goo had never hurt her before.

“Eh,” Nicole echoes playfully, perfectly parroting the noise Waverly had made. “That isn’t an answer.”

Instead of prompting Waverly further, however, Nicole instead falls silent and pops open the buttons on her pants and wriggles out of them. They drop to her ankles and she slips them over one foot before kicking them off the other and into the laundry hamper in one deft move.

Socks still on, she plucks a few items from the bathroom cabinet. This is all part of her usual regime; it is Waverly’s presence here that is somewhat out of the ordinary.

Waverly has been dating Nicole long enough now to know that her after-work routine is sacred. The first order of proceedings is always to step out of her restrictive work pants. They are hard-wearing and generally quite uncomfortable, always leaving sweet little indentations in Nicole’s stomach; happily the only battle scars of her working day today.

The second step for Nicole is to wash her face and brush her teeth. She had always been neat and fastidious, and long hours at work often made her feel as grimy as demon-hunting left Waverly. She liked to get home and freshen up before slipping into her sweatpants. It was an odd thing to love about another person, but Waverly really loved this about Nicole. As habits go, it always felt so warm and cosy.

“Cold tap for two seconds,” Nicole says and Waverly prepares for the shower to heat up as a result. Nicole lets a small amount of water into the basin before shutting the tap off again. She dips a clean flannel into the water, wrings the cloth out, and begins scrubbing at her face.

“So you got slimed, huh?” she jokes from behind the fabric, but still manages to sound sympathetic.

“Well, I almost felt as cool as a _Ghostbuster_ ,” Waverly quips back, happy for once to be in on one of Nicole’s pop culture references. The sports ones are usually a complete no-go. “But our Peacemaker-slash-proton pack trick was only fun until the demon’s structural integrity went boom - ”

“Technical demon-hunting term,” Nicole butts in, grinning as she removes the washcloth from her face.

“-exactly,” Waverly confirms, before continuing on with her story seamlessly. “Wynonna was already hidden behind a tree, and Jeremy was so far ahead of me he basically just needed to sidestep like an inch to be safe. I took the full br- _don’t laugh_!”

“I’m not!” Nicole cries, turning to face Waverly through the little gap in the steamed up glass of the stall.

Waverly wipes at the shower door again to get a better look. Nicole has emptied the sink and is squeezing a blob of toothpaste onto her brush.

“I can see you biting your cheeks,” Waverly protests, peering beadily around the condensation.

“I would never do that you baby,” Nicole says, smiling in open defiance of her words and quickly stuffing her toothbrush into her mouth. She pops it out a moment later. “Also, you still have gunk on the top of your head.”

“Well, it probably was pretty funny to watch _but_ ,” Waverly begins, wagging a finger sternly, “I’m only admitting that because I love you. And because I know you won’t tell Wynonna. I want her to think I’m pissed that she laughed so much.”

In truth, Waverly thinks that the whole sorry performance must have been hilarious to the observer, if rather gross. Wynonna had hit home with Peacemaker and the demon they had been chasing hadn’t so much exploded in a hail of blood and guts, as unleashed a downpour of some kind of unspecified, translucent goo all over Waverly and her nice new pink jacket. She should have known better than to wear it on a demon hunt. Let it not be said that there were _no_ gory demon guts, but generally the whole affair was just oddly gooey. She was still now trying to work out how to get the mess off her clothes without clogging the washing machine.

Jeremy, having thrown himself out of the way on instinct, had appeared in front of a shell-shocked Waverly a moment after impact, quite literally able to collect a sample as it dripped off Waverly’s cheek. Wynonna, however, had simply fallen about laughing, leaving Waverly to pretend to be exceptionally put out by the whole thing.

For now, she does not want to give her sister the satisfaction.

Solemnly, Nicole draws a cross over her chest, promising her silence. Then, with her toothbrush sticking out one corner of her mouth, she raises her finger up towards her parting as if to say _and don’t forget the goo_.

With a groan, Waverly squirts some more shampoo into her hand and probes her fingers over her head to find the gunk. Sure enough, she can feel its thick, slippery texture right on the very top of her crown.

“This stuff literally does _not_ come out,” she grumbles, scrubbing so hard her scalp tingles. She feels a little of goo slide downwards, but the majority holds fast.

Nicole spits into the sink. “Maybe you need to tackle it in a few different tries?”

Waverly considers this for a moment.

“Well, I am shrivelling up like a prune, and I think it’s only still in my hair now. It did wash off the rest of me pretty well. Do you think I can try again later?”

“Just put your hair up in a towel for now,” Nicole advises with a shrug, illustrating just how mundane all of this has become to them. “Cold tap on again.”

Nicole rinses her toothbrush quickly, but Waverly has already shut off the shower. She has been trying to clean up for over half an hour and knows a lost cause when she sees one. She wrings out her hair, grimacing when she feels how much demon gunk is left behind, before stepping out of the shower and onto a waiting towel laid out across the floor. Her long-standing argument for underfloor heating was a valid one, if entirely impossible with the homestead in its current state.

Nicole fishes a larger towel off the rail and holds it out, waiting for Waverly to dry her feet and step closer.

Waverly does not miss the appreciative glance Nicole sends her, revelling in it (and thankful that apparently her girlfriend is still interested in her, demon goo or not) before wrapping herself up in the warm, fluffy fabric.

“Please at least tell me you had a better day,” Waverly says, trying to pat her hair dry. Tiny, jelly-like cubes stick to the material of the towel. She sees Nicole wrinkle her nose slightly at the sight.

“Better than that? Yeah, probably. But you guys sure do set that bar low baby.”

“I do think popular culture makes demon-hunting seem a bit more glamorous,” Waverly acknowledges thoughtfully, wrapping her damp hair up in an old hand towel. Once done, she switches into a waiting set of fresh pyjamas. “We have no money, very little tech, and certainly no prestige. Instead it’s always just a lot of goo. I’m getting quite tired of it in a way.”

Nicole gives her a sympathetic little look.

“Well, if it helps a little I got us groceries yesterday. Date night cheat dinner of pasta and garlic bread? I think we need some self care.”

“Sounds amazing,” Waverly says, unable to keep a note of guilt out of her voice.

Of course, Nicole picks up on it immediately.

“ _What_?”

“No, nothing - ”

Nicole raises her eyebrows. “I know there’s a ‘but’ somewhere…”

“It’s just - honey I want a date night as much as you, but I wouldn’t bet on it happening just yet,” Waverly says. “I walked a lot of demon guts through the house trying to get to the shower. Wynonna is probably going to recruit us as cleaners.”

Nicole groans. “You have _got_ to be kidding me. I only just got home from work.”

Waverly finds herself wearing an imploring little pout. “But self-care, you-and-me-only date night afterwards, right?”

“I hate it when you do that,” Nicole gripes, leaning in for a kiss. When they break apart, she adds by way of explanation, “that look you just gave me.”

Playing innocent, Waverly asks, “ _why_?”

“You damn well know,” Nicole says, rolling her eyes. “I’m pretty sure that look would have me agreeing to anything.”

“Even - ”

“Even the disgusting demon guts, yes.”

  


~~~

  


“Maybe we have to accept that we finally need a new rug?” Waverly asks, standing back as the other two women crouch down and examine the furnishing closely. It is caked in an ugly array of mud, demon gunk, and what appears to be a not insignificant amount of blood (also non-human, probably). “This one _is_ pretty old now.”

“No way,” Wynonna says quickly. “This rug has survived an exorcism, all that enchanted icing sugar off Jolene’s cakes, _and_ the 1999 soup crisis. I’m not throwing it now because of a little bit of demon goo.”

“You sound like Gus - she never put anything in the trash. But that’s more than a little goo,” Waverly points out, looking at it all glistening over the nice patterned rug. She imagines it still in her hair and suppresses a shudder. “Like a party of snails on acid.”

“Plus there’s definitely blood and guts on there too, and it’s all up the walls,” Nicole adds helpfully, peering at a red stain that looked a little too chunky to be entirely innocuous. Waverly reminds herself to eschew salsa for a little while.

Wynonna turns her head and narrows her eyes at Nicole. “Yes, thanks for the observation, we hadn’t noticed the mountain of red blood.”

“Hey,” Waverly interjects, “I’m the one that had that stuff on me.”

Wynonna snorts at the memory, looking far too pleased with herself. “Ha, yeah. God that was funny.”

“ _No_. It wasn’t,” Waverly counters, crossing her arms.

“It was for me.”

“Why does it feel like Waverly was live bait?” Nicole asks suddenly. “You were behind a tree and Jeremy was who knows how far ahead…”

“In my defence,” Wynonna begins, and Waverly knows a convincing argument has never followed those three words out of Wynonna’s mouth, “Chetri was supposed to be live bait too.”

“God I love going to work knowing my girlfriend is like a worm on a hook.”

“Hey!” Waverly chastises again, this time looking at Nicole. “Less of the worm comparisons please.”

“You’d be the cutest one,” Nicole tries by way of placation, but it is clear from the look on her face that the comment had not hit the target she had set up for herself.

“Aw, babe,” Waverly says nonetheless. She has long since given up trying not to fawn over any small - or strange - compliment from Nicole.

“You two are literally the weirdest people I know,” Wynonna interjects. “And, yknow, coming from me…”

“Toothpaste,” Nicole declares suddenly, seemingly apropos of nothing.

Wynonna casts her an utterly bemused look. “ _And_ I rest my case your honour.”

“No,” Nicole says, shaking her head with a tiny _tsk_. “They always say that toothpaste is good for stains, especially on walls.”

“You want me to cover this whole rug - and the wall - in toothpaste?” Wynonna protests, clearly unimpressed.

“I _told_ you there’s too much gunk on it,” Waverly points out as an aside.

Nicole shrugs. “Do you have a better idea? Aside from throwing it out?”

“We’re _not_ throwing it out,” Wynonna repeats. Finally moving away from the rug and standing upright again, she turns to Waverly. “Isn’t there something in any of your books about this?”

“About getting demon guts out of soft furnishings? I’ve got books about ancient runes and spells Wyn, not a housewife’s almanac on how to clean up after a supernatural gunfight. My vote is still on new rug.”

By way of a response, Wynonna fishes her phone out of her back pocket and types for a moment.

“Internet says vinegar or regular detergent. But that’s just for normal stains - what are the odds on any serious chemical reactions between Tide and dead demon?”

“Honestly, I wouldn’t rule anything out at this point,” Waverly offers. She has no desire to start scrubbing at the substances she has just cleaned off her own skin, or to risk another explosion. “We probably won’t have a house left to clean up.”

“Did the internet also say toothpaste?” Nicole asks pointedly.

Wynonna sends her a mock glare.

“It maybe mentioned it, yeah,” she says, then, with a resigned sigh, adds, “how much do we have in the bathroom?”

“Only a couple of tubes, I think,” Waverly supplies.

“Well, it’s worth a try,” Wynonna decides, clapping her hands together. “Who’s helping me?”

“You know what? I’m good. You shot the demon, so I’m leaving this one to the experts. I’m just gonna go ahead and put the garlic bread in the oven,” Nicole says, before drifting off towards the kitchen. Under her breath she can be heard to mutter, ‘ _one night. Just one night off without any demon fluids, please’_.

  
  
  


~~~  
  
  


Armed with a stack of paper towels, some rubber gloves, a bowl of warm water, and two brand new tubes of toothpaste, Waverly aids Wynonna in scrubbing at a small section of the rug and wall (for experimental purposes until Jeremy has tested the sample he took earlier in the day) until the smell of dinner cooking becomes too tempting for either of them to ignore.

Waverly sends a shifty look to Wynonna, who sighs. “Go on, you’ve suffered enough today.”

“It _is_ meant to be date night,” Waverly says by way of justification.

“It’s fine Wave, I’m calling it a night too. We’ll see what Jeremy can tell us about this stuff tomorrow.”

They both stand up and admire their handiwork.

“You know, I think the toothpaste actually did something,” Waverly concludes, tilting her head to one side.

Wynonna wrinkles her nose. “Don’t tell - ”

“I can hear you both,” Nicole shouts from the kitchen, sounding smug.

Not for the first time, Waverly silently observes that both women are far too competitive for their own good. Rather than making any comment, however, she simply begins collecting up all the cleaning utensils.

“Pride Haught, generally associated with falls,” Wynonna calls back.

“Any more comments like that and I’m going to take back the extra food I made for you.”

At this, Wynonna’s expression shifts and she wisely elects to say nothing more. In spite of the image she deliberately cultivates, she also has more than enough tact to collect an enormous bowl of pasta and retire immediately to her room, leaving Waverly and Nicole alone for what felt like the first night in a long time.

Nicole had been working night shifts for more than a week, and prior to that Waverly and Wynonna had been conducting some night-time stake-outs on a site of repeated strange sightings. Their job had started to become as much about the monsters and demons Willa unleashed so many months ago, as about dealing with revenants.

It was perhaps an odd way to describe the life they lead, but Waverly felt as though she was teetering on the verge of burning out. Keeping all the scary, supernatural crap in Purgatory at bay felt like such a huge responsibility, and when she wasn’t worrying about doing her own job, then she was worrying about Wynonna and Nicole doing theirs. She found herself struggling to sleep on the nights when she was in bed but Nicole was at work, resting easy only in the early hours when she heard Nicole’s car pull into the drive, and succumbing to sleep entirely only when Nicole had slipped beneath the sheets and burrowed close.

She is just happy that, after everything - after the DNA results, and Shae, and _Rosita_ \- she and Nicole had somehow come out the other end stronger. Waverly knows that their relationship was armour, the armour they both needed to survive this period of their lives. They would sometimes stay up late, talking and making plans for the time when all the demons are gone (or, at the very least, when there are so few demons left that hunting them down becomes only an aside to the rest of their lives).

There is always a _when_ . It will not do any of them any good to think of this life going on indefinitely. Wynonna needs Alice back, and Waverly needs a _normal_ life with her girlfriend and her sister and her niece. She needs to know that her family and friends are safe. She needs know that, one day, she and Nicole can get married and buy a house and settle down.

But, for now, dinner on the couch with Nicole is more than enough. They switch on Netflix and chatter over the crappy show they select. They creep closer and closer on the couch until Nicole’s arm is over Waverly’s shoulders and Waverly is buried as close to Nicole as she can physically manage.

There are comfortable silences and contented sighs, some stray hands and lazy kisses until Waverly accidentally yawns against Nicole’s mouth.

“Oh God,” she exclaims “I’m so sorry babe.” She pulls a horrified look that is deliberately hyperbolic, but cannot help but feel bad nonetheless.

“I feel so wanted,” Nicole teases, before dropping a sweet kiss to the tip of Waverly’s nose. “Come on, I’ll clean these up and we’ll head to bed.” She reaches for the dishes and ignores Waverly’s weak attempts to offer help.

“Nicole…”

“You’re tired. Just let this one go, yeah?” Nicole says kindly as she disappears into the kitchen, and Waverly hears the water run as Nicole swills out the bowls and, presumably, leaves them in a passable state until tomorrow morning. It is fairly rare for Nicole to leave a chore undone, and Waverly concludes guiltily that they must _both_ be tired.

With another loud yawn, Waverly rises from the couch and moves aimlessly about the living room.

“Do you think if I let the gunk dry, it will just brush out?” Waverly calls into the kitchen, combing her fingers through her loose hair and examining the result in the long mirror running horizontally on one of the walls.

Nicole pops into sight in the reflection, standing under the archway that separates the living room and the kitchen. She is wearing a cheeky smile that, tired or otherwise, makes Waverly’s stomach squeeze.

“I’m really into this new brand of pre-bedroom talk.”

“ _Don’t_ ,” Waverly says, struggling to bite back a laugh as she pulls her hair up and secures it with an ever-present band on her wrist. “I don’t exactly feel at my most _alluring_ right now.”

Chuckling, Nicole comes up behind Waverly and winds strong arms around her waist. Crouching down slightly, she props her chin on Waverly’s shoulder.

“Well, I still love you, demon goo or not.”

Waverly tilts her head towards Nicole for a kiss.

“ _So_ romantic.”

Nicole pretends to be put out. “I actually thought it was pretty good, considering I’ll probably wake up with your demon hair in my face tomorrow morning.”

Waverly elbows Nicole and a small scuffle ensues. Nicole already has the advantage with her arms around Waverly to begin with, and she wins this one easily.

“Tell me it doesn’t happen,” she laughs, face pressed into Waverly’s neck as she pinches lightly at Waverly's sides, resisting the latter's attempts to squirm away.

In truth, however, they have lost count of the number of times that Waverly’s hair tie has slipped loose in the night, leaving Nicole to wake up and find herself all but inhaling Waverly’s hair.

“I really hope that gunk stuff _isn’t_ toxic,” Waverly announces when they finally call a truce and drift towards the stairs.

“Please, not if it’s gonna end up in my face sometime tonight.”

They brush their teeth in the smaller upstairs bathroom, standing side-by-side and making use of what little toothpaste remains available.

“We’ll have to get some more tomorrow,” Nicole says, and Waverly knows this is her way of making a mental note to herself. “And probably some shampoo.” At this, she grins at Waverly as, still in sync, they head to the bedroom.

“ _Very funny_ ,” Waverly says, slipping into bed and grimacing at the cold sheets. “Help, the bed needs warming up.”

Nicole flashes Waverly a fond little look as she shuts off the light and happily obliges. In the dark she gravitates to Waverly’s side as if pulled by a magnet, her lips searching again as they string out the night until neither of them can quite stay awake any longer.

It is always a sweet relief when Waverly can fade into a heavy, welcoming sleep with Nicole safe and sound beside her. It is always a relief when they have stolen even a couple of hours for themselves, to just stop and breathe and _be_ , both as individuals and together.

Tomorrow will bring more revenants and monsters but, Waverly concludes as she finally feels her body relax, demon goo or otherwise, tonight had been just what she needed.

**Author's Note:**

> So, bang on 4,000 words later I hope you guys had fun with this one too. 
> 
> Sidenote: after the Ghostbusters reference I'm really up for writing a crossover/mash up now. Who's in?!
> 
> I'd love to hear your thoughts on the fic via a comment below or on twitter @rositabustiiios, and I'll catch you soon for an update on my current ongoing Wayhaught fic, and that other toothpaste-related one shot.


End file.
